The Hindu : `Model area' scheme evokes poor response from officials

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 09, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu-Chennai

`Model area' scheme evokes poor response from officials

By S. Shivakumar

CHENNAI JAN. 8. This year's Road Safety Week (RSW) could end up without any concrete achievement as plans to earmark "model road safety zones" evoked poor response from official agencies. Various departments involved have not implemented any co-ordinated strategy, though a meeting was conducted in December-end in this regard.

Apart from poorly visible banners at some places, declaring that motorists were entering a "no violation zone," and scattered "swoops" on motorists along arterial roads such as Anna Salai, there is not much activity to reduce risks on the road--such as creation of proper road margins, pedestrian footpaths, development of signages, repairing of traffic signals and compulsory retraining of drivers of public service vehicles like autorickshaws and ride-share vans for whom the RSW is not even a ritual.

The "model area" scheme, mooted during a road safety meeting chaired by a senior IAS officer, was well received and the corporation personnel had also agreed to identify and earmark certain zones. "However we are yet to receive any communication in this regard", says a representative who attended the meeting.

Meanwhile, pedestrians are continuing efforts to unite and mobilise, as the vehicle-centric planning of the Transport Department, Chennai Corporation, PWD and Police have not changed despite the academic discussions on road safety. Campaigns and protests are being planned later in January, involving the elderly and children, two badly affected groups among pedestrians, to compel the officials to rethink their strategies.

Announcement on some of campaign plans will be made on January 19 by the recently convened pedestrians movement.

"Pavements in several roads are missing or completely hijacked by encroachers forcing pedestrians to walk on the carriageway. Corporation officials, who spend taxpayers' money to study the system in Hyderabad, would realise that they are in a class of their own, when it comes to acting against pedestrians", says Malathi, a school teacher, working at Nungambakkam.

As many as 328 pedestrians have perished on city roads during the past couple of years. Studies have shown that in most of the cases the pedestrians were not at fault. "The police and corporation fail to give the pedestrians their due importance while planning regulations. Even in busy commercial areas, the importance given to parking is not given to pedestrian movement, and the Corporation is making money at their cost, by converting their space into parking facility", points out a traffic planner. To support his claim, he points out the `failed experiments of one-way systems' implemented at Purasawalkam and T.Nagar areas.

Chennai is a metro where the Corporation, under the previous DMK-led council, pursued an active policy to remove pavements, claiming that they were not required because people did not use them. The civic body and the Highways have also remained dormant for a few years, and not repaired any pavements - in sharp contrast to the attention given to roads.

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